Robbed hit of the week 7/24/17 - Guy's "I Wanna Get With U"...
from the album The Future (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50
This week's "robbed hit" comes from the R&B trio Guy, whose leader, producer/songwriter/singer Teddy Riley, was the presumed "king" of the "New Jack Swing" genre, writing and producing hits for artists like Keith Sweat and Bobby Brown. With Aaron Hall and Tim Gatling, Guy recorded their self-titled debut album, although Gatling would depart before the release in 1988, replaced by Aaron's brother Damion. That first record sent five songs into Billboard magazine's R&B top-40, with third single "I Like" going to #2 and crossing over to their pop Hot 100 at #70. At the same time, Riley released a single billed to himself "featuring Guy", "My Fantasy", from the soundtrack to the Spike Lee movie Do The Right Thing, that went all the way to the top of the R&B chart and hit #62 pop.
The trio of Riley and the Hall brothers started out the 1990's with their second album, The Future. The lead single, "I Wanna Get With U", was written by Teddy and Aaron with Aqil Davidson, and was another slice of by-the-books new jack swing seduction...
Although "I Wanna Get With U" became Guy's fifth top-5 R&B hit, the single stalled at the halfway point on Billboard's pop Hot 100 in December of 1990. The dance mixes of the track climbed to #27 on their Dance Club Play list. Overseas, the song was a top-40 hit in the Netherlands at #28.
Altogether five tracks from The Future reached the R&B top-20, with follow-up "Let's Chill" becoming an even bigger hit (it'll be a future "robbed hit" selection). However, internal struggles between themselves and their management caused the dissolution of the trio, though they would re-emerge by the end of the decade with what would be their biggest pop success, "Dancin'", in 1999.
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Here's the trio appearing on the Arsenio Hall show to promote the single...
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